After a five year hiatus, queen of experimental noise rock in the mid 10s, Pharmakon returns with the all-consuming 'WITHER AND WARP'. Channelling the striking eco-feminist work of Ana Mendieta with the impactful thumbnail of the track, the piece is best described in the artist's own words: “The lyrics for this song began with a euphoric and vividly hallucinatory dream. In it, “I” did not exist, simply was. Without memory, identity, or ego. Suspended outside of time - only present moment. Oblivion. Without true thought, merely sensations that felt as comforting as they were unfamiliar: I sensed the prickled growing pains of an extending root, and the tingle of minerals soaking through it. I heard a chattering flow of information pass through me, all chemical communication. A vague awareness collected slowly, of being the moss that cushioned a stone. Enraptured in the beauty of existence as a plant, a producer who takes only sun, air, and water to reciprocate multitudes in return. In this dream, I my "self” was dead. I had passed away into the earth, becoming part of it, or many parts of it - through the divine transfiguration of decay. And I was more content in this mode of being than I ever was with life as a human. This dream-logic hinged upon the hope that when we die, the body merely breaks down back into the energy that was trapped inside its’ matter. And all the carrion-eaters who might devour “you” will surely take “you” into “them”, rendering your death back into the folds of life. This song represents the ecstasy of that dream… joy in (a lack of) existence, the self scattered throughout many forms of being.How sweet the vision of a death without waste. But as always, we must awaken from such sweet dreams…” 'WITHER AND WARP' will appear on Pharmakon's fifth album Maggot Mass, set for release on the 4th of October courtesy of Sacred Bones. -Holly Mullineaux